Flood Apocalypse: I Want to Become the Ocean's Overlord

Seawater filled my lungs.

I opened my eyes; sunlight pierced the water's surface. My mouth was full of a mixture of salt and stomach acid. I lay trembling on a broken plank of the boat.

As sea levels rose, most of the land was submerged. In the distance, only the top floors of a row of high-rise buildings remained above the water, like tombstones stuck in the water. Car wrecks, furniture fragments, and tangled corpses floated on the surface.

My left leg hurts. There's a twisted old scar on my calf, like it was broken by a blunt object and didn't heal properly. When I touched the scar with my fingers, my stomach suddenly cramped.

What am I afraid of? I can't remember.

It took me three hours to drift from the driftwood to a leaning office building. In the ruins on the fourth floor, I found half a box of water-soaked compressed biscuits and two sealed bottles of mineral water. Sitting on the windowsill, watching the sunset, I slowly ate the biscuits. My stomach cramped several times before I finally got used to it.

The sound of engines came before dark.

A converted fishing boat sailed in from the south, its bow secured with a metal ram. A searchlight shone on my face.

"There's one still alive!"

Two people waded through waist-deep water to climb to the fourth floor. The flashlight was so bright it was hard to open their eyes. A rough hand grabbed my collar and dragged me off the windowsill.

“You’re so skinny.” The man who grabbed me was a bald, burly man with a scar on his face. He searched me thoroughly, found two bottles of water and half a pack of biscuits, pried open my mouth to check my teeth, and then pushed me into a corner.

"We have no goods, and lives are worthless. Throw them back."

Another young man stopped him: "The boss said he's short of laborers. He can still stand, so take him back to work for a few days before throwing him away."

The bald man hesitated for a moment, then dragged me downstairs and threw me onto the deck of the fishing boat.

The deck was piled high with the supplies they had just looted—canned goods, bottled water, and several boxes of ammunition. Two guards squatted by the ship's railing, smoking. The bald man walked to the bow and reported into the walkie-talkie, his voice low, but I caught a few words: "Eastern port... Pier 63... that sunken ship... salvage it tomorrow..."

They locked me in a small storage room in the ship's cabin. The door wasn't locked—they thought a person who was about to starve didn't need a lock.

Two in the morning. The engine shut off. The footsteps gradually quieted down. I pushed open the storage room door and walked barefoot on the cold metal plate. My left knee trembled with every step. A toolbox was piled up in the corner of the deck, and I found a wrench.

As we approached the ship's railing, one of the guards turned around. Before he could even open his mouth, a wrench slammed into his temple. He collapsed. Another stood up, his hand reaching for his waist. I lunged forward, swinging the wrench twice—the first time hitting his shoulder, the second time striking his neck. He groaned and fell to the ground. The wrench slipped from his grasp and fell onto the deck. I didn't pick it up.

My hands are shaking. It's not from nervousness, it's from not having recovered my strength.

I picked up the pistol from the guard's waist and released the safety.

The bald man rushed out of the cockpit. He stopped when he saw the gun.

"Who are you?"

I kicked him in the knee. He fell to his knees. "What's it to you? Shut up."

I pulled out his walkie-talkie and map. I stuffed the walkie-talkie into a waterproof bag. On the map was a hand-drawn red circle, marked next to Pier 63, with a few words scrawled on it: Shipwreck, Tomorrow.

What is this?

"Scrap metal." The bald man clutched his knee. "There's a ship sunk under the dock. The boss said there might be something valuable inside."

I stared at him for three seconds. He didn't know it was a submarine. They thought it was just an ordinary shipwreck.

I smashed the butt of my gun on the back of his head. He fell to the ground.

There weren't many supplies on deck, so I swept the canned food and bottled water into a waterproof bag and jumped onto the life raft hanging on the side of the ship. It took three pulls to start the engine.

After sailing two nautical miles, they looked back and saw the fishing boat's searchlights were on again, but no one was chasing them.

As dawn broke, the outline of the eastern harbor appeared in the sea fog. Pier 63 was mostly submerged. I tied the life raft to a broken concrete pillar, put on a tattered diving suit I'd salvaged from a fishing boat, and jumped into the water.

There was an underwater current. It wasn't a uniform flow, but rather intermittent pulses, pushing in from the left. My body reacted before my brain—I turned sideways, gliding along the edge of the current, avoiding the main axis, and diving close to the dock's slope. These movements were natural, as if I had repeated them countless times.

Ten meters. Fifteen meters.

It lies at the bottom of the dock. Gray, 12 meters long, numbered SV-07. Not a shipwreck. It's a submarine. The rudder is entangled in rusted steel cables, and the hull has a few scratches, but overall it's intact.

I swam to the hatch and turned the handwheel hard. The rusted metal made a screeching sound, then it came loose.

The airlock is flooded. The inner door is open.

The cockpit was cramped, with only one seat and a row of control panels in front. The instrument panel was covered in dust. The start button was pressed. The engine emitted a deep roar, and the instrument panel lights illuminated one by one. Battery 78%. Oxygen sufficient. Thrusters functioning normally.

When we surfaced, the sea fog had lifted somewhat. I moved the supplies from the life raft into the submarine—canned goods stacked in the storage compartments, bottled water tucked into the cooler, the walkie-talkie and map I'd seized from the bald man placed next to the control panel, and the pistol tucked into the right-hand recess, within easy reach. Then I scuttled the life raft. No trace could be left.

The hatch is closed. The sealing ring makes a muffled sound as it locks in place.

I lowered the seat back and closed my eyes. The low hum of the engine came from the bulkhead, muffled, like a heartbeat.

Then I sank.

Deck. Late at night. No moon.

I lay on my back, the back of my head pressed against the damp, cold deck. The old injury in my left leg throbbed, preventing me from sleeping soundly. In my drowsy state, I heard someone speaking in my ear—very softly, but very close.

"Let's do it now."

A hand pressed down on my shoulder. I jolted awake, but my body was still drowsy, and I reacted a beat too late. Marcus was crouching beside me, a flashlight tucked under his arm, the light shining from his chin upwards, turning his face into a deathly pale stone.

“Don’t blame me,” he said. “There’s not enough food for three people. You’re already lame; you’re just a burden to us.”

I opened my mouth to shout. My throat felt like it was filled with glue.

Joey grabbed my left arm. Rusty grabbed my right arm. They dragged me off the deck. I tried to kick, but my left leg wouldn't obey me at all; my knee felt like it was filled with cement. I shook my head desperately, and the back of my head slammed against the iron railing of the ship with a loud thud.

"Stop struggling." Rusty's voice was impatient, as if he were dealing with a piece of troublesome trash.

They flipped me over the gunwale. My fingers gripped the iron bars, my nails digging into the rust, drawing three bloody scratches. Then Joey pried my fingers apart. One by one. Slowly. He didn't look me in the eye.

As I fell, I saw the three of them standing on the ship's side. Marcus had his back to me and never looked back.

Water poured into my mouth, nose, and lungs.

Then I woke up.

I was drenched in cold sweat. My hands remained clenched, my nails digging into my palms. The engine was still humming softly. The signal dot on the sonar screen moved slowly.

Marcus. Joey. Rusty.

I chewed on those three names over and over again until my teeth ached.

But I don't know where they are. The nightmare also gave me a name and a face, but no coordinates. I only remember that when they threw me overboard, there were several boxes of canned food and bottled water piled on the boat—they were short of supplies. People who are short of supplies in a flood either seek refuge with some faction or are on their way to rob others.

I flipped the map over and wrote down the three names with a marker. Then I added a line next to them: Listen to the Anchor Gang channel. Scout the surrounding waters. Find them.

The pistol magazine was ejected for inspection—eight rounds. It was pushed back in. The safety was engaged.

No rush. Nobody can find the submarine in the deep sea. I can wait. Wait for them to surface on their own.